Opera for Mac speed improvements

This article is just a suppliment to my main browser speed tests article (which contains speed tests for all major browsers on multiple operating systems) - I suggest you read the main article first.

When I first ran the new Opera 8 (preview 1) release, like most Opera/Mac users, I noticed a significant speed improvement. However, the results I got when researching my browser speed tests article, although good, were not quite so significant as I had expected, as the improvement had felt more significant compared with Opera 7.54.

While using it alongside other programs, I noticed the difference became more significant. My browser speed tests article tests were all done with the browser as the only thing running, but during normal use, it is common to have several programs running simultaneously. So I decided to test whether the speed differences were actually more significant while other programs were running.

The tests

The tests were the same tests as performed for the browser speed tests article. For the loaded test, I run Safari (showing a single locally stored page), then IE Mac (showing the same page). This eats a large portion of my RAM, forcing Opera to be more economic with its memory usage. I then use Terminal to run this nasty little shell script:

#!/bin/bash
while [ "0" -lt "1" ]
do
	arbNum=0
	for ((a=1; a <= 1000 ; a++))
	do
		for ((b=1; b <= 1000 ; b++))
		do
			let "arbNum = a * b"
			echo $arbNum 
		done
	done
done

This runs an infinite loop that repeatedly performs a simple multiplication, and displays the result in a terminal. This instantly ramps up processor usage to 100%, where it remains for the duration of the test (proven using Activity Monitor). This leaves precious little for Opera to use, so it has to fight the operating system for resources.

Test results

Opera 8 tests were done using Opera 8 technical preview 1. The tests are done on Mac OS X 10.3.7 (Panther).

Hardware; 400 MHz G4, 256 MB RAM.

In the first two tables, Change Ratio shows how much faster Opera 8 is than Opera 7.54. In the last table, it shows how much more significant this speed difference is when the system is under load.

Mac OS X unloaded speed chart - times are given in seconds.

Browser name	Cold start	Warm start	Rendering CSS	Rendering table	Script speed	Multiple images	History
Opera 7.54	6.94	6.13	1.78	1.75	36	1.41	23
Opera 8.0	5.75	5.47	1.71	1.31	22	1.33	16
Change Ratio	1.21	1.12	1.04	1.34	1.64	1.06	1.44

Mac OS X loaded speed chart - times are given in seconds.

Browser name	Cold start	Warm start	Rendering CSS	Rendering table	Script speed	Multiple images	History
Opera 7.54	27.88	20.07	5.78	4.93	101	4.91	243
Opera 8.0	19.85	17.67	5.39	3.70	66	2.63	69
Change Ratio	1.40	1.14	1.07	1.33	1.53	1.87	3.52

Mac OS X unloaded vs loaded speed improvement chart.

Browser name	Cold start	Warm start	Rendering CSS	Rendering table	Script speed	Multiple images	History
Change Ratio	1.16	1.01	1.03	1.00	0.94	1.76	2.45

Conclusions

In all tests, Opera 8 performs faster than Opera 7.54, regardless of whether or not the operating system is under load. However, in virtually all tests, the improvement is noticably more significant when the system is under load. For rendering and scripting, the improvement is virtually identical with or without load. When first starting, the improvement starts to be more significant. When loading pages containing multiple images, it is one and three quarters as significant. When it comes to using history, the improvement is two and a half times as significant. And that difference is easily enough to notice, and enough to seriously improve your browsing speed.

Note that the actual speed is not important here (as that will obviously decrease as the system becomes more loaded). What is important is the difference in speed between the different versions as the system becomes more loaded.

So to summarise; yes, I was right. The speed improvement is normally enough to be noticable. But it becomes even more noticable when other programs are running (and lets face it, that is most of the time).